From the colonial point of view, federation would tend to secure to the Australians better general and local government than they possess at present. It is absurd to expect that colonial governors should be upon good terms with their charges when we shift men every four years—say from Demerara to New South Wales, or from Jamaica to Victoria. The unhappy governor loses half a year in moving to his post, and a couple of years in coming to understand the circumstances of his new province, and then settles down to be successful in the ruling of educated whites under democratic institutions only if he can entirely throw aside the whole of his experience, derived as it will probably have been from the despotic sway over blacks. We never can have a set of colonial governors fit for Australia until the Australian governments are made a separate service, and entirely separated from the West Indies, Africa, and Hong Kong.
Besides improving the government, confederation would lend to every colonist the dignity derived from citizenship of a great country—a point the importance of which will not be contested by any one who has been in America since the war.
It is not easy to resist the conclusion that confederation is in every way desirable. If it leads to independence, we must say to the Australians what Houmai ta Whiti said in his great speech to the progenitors of the Maori race when they were quitting Hawaiki: “Depart, and dwell in peace; let there be no quarreling among you, but build up a great people.”
CHAPTER XII.
ADELAIDE.
THE capital of South Australia is reputed the hottest of all the cities that are chiefly inhabited by the English race, and as I neared it through the Backstairs Passage into the Gulf of St. Vincent, past Kangaroo Island, and still more upon landing at Glenelg, I came to the conclusion that its reputation was deserved. The extreme heat which characterizes South Australia is to some extent a consequence of its lying as far north as New South Wales and Queensland, and so far inland as to escape the breeze by which their coasts are visited; for although by “South Australia” we should, in the southern hemisphere, naturally understand that portion of Australia which was farthest from the tropics, yet it is a curious fact that the whole colony of Victoria lies to the south of Adelaide, that neither of the great southern peninsulas of Australia are in, but that nearly all the northernmost points of the continent now lie within, the country misnamed “South Australia.”
The immense northern territory, being supposed to be valueless, has generously been made a present of to South Australia, which thus becomes the largest British colony, and nearly as large as British Hindostan. If the great expenditure which is going on succeeds in causing the discovery of any good land at the north, it will of course at once be made into a separate colony. The only important result that seems likely to follow from this annexation to South Australia of the northern territory is that schoolboys’ geography will suffer; indeed, I should say that a total destruction of all principle in the next generation would be the inevitable result of so rude a blow to confidence in books and masters as the assurance from a teacher‘s lips that the two most remote countries of Australia from each other are united under one colonial government, and that the northernmost points of the whole continent are situated in South Australia. Boys will probably conclude that across the line south becomes north and north south, and that in Australia the sun rises in the west.
Instead of gold, wheat, sheep, as in Victoria, the staples here are wheat, sheep, copper, and my introduction to South Australia was characteristic of the colony, for I found in Port Adelaide, where I first set foot, not only every store filled to overflowing, but piles of wheat-sacks in the roadways, and lines of wheat-cars on the sidings of railways, without even a tarpaulin to cover the grain.
Of all the mysteries of commerce, those that concern the wheat and flour trade are, perhaps, the strangest to the uninitiated. Breadstuffs are still sent from California and Chili to Victoria, yet from Adelaide, close at hand, wheat is being sent to England and flour to New York!
There can be no doubt that ultimately Victoria and Tasmania will at least succeed in feeding themselves. It is probable that neither New Zealand nor Queensland will find it to their interest to do the like. Wool-growing in the former and cotton and wool in the latter will continue to pay better than wheat in the greater portion of their lands. Their granary, and that possibly of the City of Sydney itself, will be found in South Australia, especially if land capable of carrying wheat be discovered to the westward of the settlements about Adelaide. That the Australias, Chili, California, Oregon, and other Pacific States can ever export largely of wheat to Europe is now more than doubtful. If manufactures spring up on this side the world, these countries, whatever their fertility, will have at least enough to do to feed themselves.
As I entered the streets of the “farinaceous village,” as Adelaide is called by conceited Victorians, I was struck with the amount of character they exhibit both in the way of buildings, of faces, and of dress. The South Australians have far more idea of adapting their houses and clothes to their climate than have the people of the other colonies, and their faces adapt themselves. The verandas to the shops are sufficiently contiguous to form a perfect piazza; the people rise early, and water the sidewalk in front of their houses; and you never meet a man who does not make some sacrifice to the heat, in the shape of puggree, silk coat, or sun-helmet; but the women are nearly as unwise here as in the other colonies, and persist in going about in shawls and colored dresses. Might they but see a few of the Richmond or Baltimore ladies in their pure white muslin frocks, and die of envy, for the dress most convenient in a hot dry climate is also the most beautiful under its bright sun.